Am I eating enough protein?If I eat less meat, won’t I have a protein deficiency?Maybe I should add protein powder to my daily diet?Should I switch to a paleo diet?I can say myself that one of the questions I was asked most frequently after choosing tobecome vegetarian at age 11 was: Where do you get protein from? (It did not take long forthose who saw me to see that my growth was not really harmed ...)There is a very common (although incorrect) idea that vegetarians and vegans will not getenough protein in their diet because they do not eat meat. More than that, there are moreand more people today who support the claim that we should all eat very high amounts ofprotein in order to lose weight.So how do you know how much is too little protein? Too much protein? How much proteindo you need at all?That&apos;s what today is all about!Protein is essential for the body, it is necessary, among other things, to build and repair cellsin the body, and in the production of enzymes, hormones and antibodies. Apart from that,eating protein contributes to a feeling of satiation - which can reduce the feeling of hungerand prevent us from craving the less healthy kind of snacks.The average person needs at least 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, and thiscan go up to about 2 grams per kilogram if you exercise regularly, or try to reduce fat levelswithout losing muscle mass. Pregnant women and nursing mothers also need more protein.On average it can be said that the recommendations for protein intake are about 56 gramsper day for a man and 46 grams per day for a woman, but it is quite easy to calculate thispersonally according to your weight ...In general: this means 48 grams of protein per day for a person weighing 60 kg, 56 grams ofprotein for a weight of 70 kg, 64 grams of protein per day for a weight of 80 kg.So, who still needs to worry about protein deficiency?Most foods contain a certain amount of protein, and true protein deficiency is extremelyrare in developed countries. Protein deficiency rates are highest in Central African andSoutheast Asian countries, and can reach up to about 30%.However, vegetarians and vegans whose diet is unbalanced may suffer from proteindeficiency, and the same is true of people who are hospitalized for long periods. In addition,people with anorexia may have a lack of protein.Symptoms of protein deficiency:Protein deficiency can lead to symptoms of fatigue, developmental impairment (physical ormental), hair loss or loss of hair pigmentation, loss of muscle mass, low body temperature,insulin resistance, decreased production of enzymes and hormones – and thus hormonalirregularity and damage to fertility, loss of elasticity of the skin, and, of course, damage tothe immune system.Protein deficiency, in its most severe form which is known mainly in populations sufferingfrom significant and long-term starvation, can become a Kwashiorkor syndrome, meaningprotein malnutrition, and can be fatal.What about too much protein?Yes, that can happen too! Especially for those who follow the Atkins diet, the zone diet, orthe paleo diet (the ancient human diet) - diets that support extensive protein intake, toreduce weight and build muscle mass.Most studies today show that consuming over 2 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight (for normal people, not athletes) can lead to significant health hazards.Symptoms of excessive protein intake include: digestive issues - nausea, diarrhoea orconstipation, dehydration, unexplained fatigue, irritability, headaches, weight gain,unpleasant mouth odour, loss of calcium.If you have any questions you can email me at mayanatuoprathy@gmail.comOr visit: www.mayanaturopathy.co.uk

Action For Wellness

Ep3 Am I getting enough protein?

 Artificial SweetenersWelcome back to another episode of naturopath&apos;s corner. I&apos;m Maya, as you know, and today I want to talk about one of the questions that I get asked the most often in clinic and that is, what about artificial sweeteners? Why should we avoid them? Do we need to avoid them? On the surface Artificial Sweeteners have great potential, right? Because instead of 140 calories in our can of drink we get zero. Yay! It&apos;s like the perfect diet food. Right? If you ask me the answer is probably not. The first thing is for me, it&apos;s in the name, it&apos;s an artificial sweetener, it isn&apos;t known in nature. As a general rule, we want to limit the intake of artificial foods, you can refer to them as ultra processed, and most of us already know that these are the kinds of foods that we should be avoiding. Artificial sweeteners are a lot sweeter than sugar. They can be about 600 times sweeter than sugar. That&apos;s why the diet version of a drink  is sweeter than the actual version of the drink. If you&apos;re drinking these artificial sweeteners on a regular basis, what&apos;s actually happening is that you are creating a new threshold for sweetness. And in this new threshold, fruit  just doesn&apos;t measure up. So we just want to have more and more and more sweet things. A weird animal study found that sweeteners are potentially highly addictive. And when rats get the choice between saccharin and cocaine, they went for this saccharin. So this isn&apos;t great news. When it comes to the safety of these sweeteners, studies are inconclusive. But what I can say is that we really don&apos;t know what the effect of large amounts of these chemicals have over many years. I&apos;m also concerned by the fact that some trials have shown that consumption of diet drinks can put you at a far higher risk of developing conditions like metabolic syndrome and type two diabetes, and mostly we choose the artificially sweetened drink because we want to reduce our risk of these things. Artificial Sweeteners appear to change the host microbiome, basically what it means is that it&apos;s affecting your gut bacteria which is basically in charge of everything in your body. So that&apos;s got the potential to not be great news. Another thing that it can do is it can lead to decreased satiation which means that you you require more food in order to feel full. Another thing is it can alter glucose homeostasis, which can be the cause for insulin resistance, which is associated with increased caloric consumption and weight gain. So even if the research isn&apos;t conclusively against it, I suggest to err the side of caution, so I don&apos;t recommend people use artificial sweeteners, I do recommend avoiding them whenever possible. And if you would like to find other alternatives, personally, I would say drink more water. If you don&apos;t like water, you can add fruit to your water, actual literal fruit, not fruit flavoured waters. Those just include either sugar or artificial sweeteners. Drink herbal tea, that&apos;s what I do. I drink herbal tea, it works. It&apos;s delicious. And it&apos;s sugar free. I have found that a knowing all of this really does make you drink less, another option is to go from one to half, to quarter to none, usually works better than trying to go from hero to zero. So these were few reasons why in my mind, artificial sweeteners don&apos;t live up to the hype and why we should try and avoid them when possible. Good. Hope you have a great day. Always delightful to chat with you. And as ever, if you have any questions, you know, just email me at mayanaturopathy@gmail.com and I will answer them for you. Hope you have a wonderful day and I will see you next time! 

Artificial Sweeteners- do they live up to the promise?

Today we&apos;re going to be talking about how much fruit is too much fruit. Spoiler alert: for the most of us - it&apos;s not a thing. Too much fruit is not a problem most of us will struggle with. This is a question that I genuinely get asked so many times, because I say eat more fruit and my patients are saying: but it&apos;s full of sugar. First is that 75% of the population does not eat enough fruit. The recommendations are for five different pieces of fruit and vegetables per day, which translates to one to two pieces of fruit a day. And 75% of the population are not hitting one or two pieces of fruit a day! This is  astounding because fruit is delicious, and colourful and beautiful and lovely. So why why are we not having any part of the reason that we&apos;re not having any, is because we&apos;re terrified of how much sugar is in it. But in reality, is it the same? Let&apos;s talk banana versus chocolate bar: the banana has fewer calories, less sugar than a chocolate bar and has the fibre has the vitamins has the minerals which no offence chocolate bar, but they don&apos;t have it. And what we&apos;ve seen from the research is that when you increase your intake from two fruits a day to five fruits today, we see a  13% reduction in risk for general mortality, 30% less risk of death from any cause. We see lowered risk for heart disease we see lower risk for cancer we see lowered risk for respiratory disease. Basically better health. Why is this? It&apos;s because of the fibre. If you pick up an apple or a banana or a pear or a kiwi and you eat it as is, then you&apos;re getting all of that fibre. And what does this do? Okay, so the first thing is that we&apos;re increasing tremendously the amount of vitamins and the amount of minerals and the amount of antioxidants that we&apos;re having. What are these do? First of all, they make us happy because they&apos;re colourful. So we eat through our eyes, right? We see this colourful food and it makes us happy but it genuinely also makes us happy because of a biochemical response. So the more fruit we eat, the happier we feel. It helps relieve anxiety it helps relieve depression, it helps reduce stress levels in our lives. It also makes us look better and feel better physically, not just mentally although it does work mentally as well. When we look and we feel better everything else just seems that much nicer in life. But also we&apos;re adding all of the fibre what is the fibre do well of fibre makes you poop properly? We&apos;re adding the water as well because fruit contains water and fibre so we&apos;re making better poop. What does that do that literally getting rid of the crap in our body. It&apos;s the best form of detoxification, it replenishes our body with all the things that needs. So like I said, if you&apos;re a diabetic, and we&apos;re counting how many carbs you&apos;re having, then this does not apply for you. But if you&apos;re generally healthy person when you add all of the fruit, what we found is that your blood sugar levels don&apos;t rise, they go down. And we&apos;re lowering all of the other things that we want to be lowering like your cholesterol and your blood pressure, which generally helps with health in all directions, it lowers your risk of heart disease and metabolic syndrome. And like I said before cancer and pulmonary disease and respiratory disease. So eat more fruit, eat more fruit, because it is delicious. But if you&apos;re thinking, Oh, I shouldn&apos;t eat. I shouldn&apos;t eat more than an apple a day. I say eat an apple, and a pear and a kiwi and a banana and some raspberries and blueberries and whatever else you can think of and have all of those every day because it will help you feel better. So if you&apos;re worried about it, if you need specific consultation, then you know where to find me. 

Ep1 How much fruit should I be eating?

Today we’re discussing fad diets – we’re all used to hearing about all the different new and fantastic, life changing, diets and detoxes. But do these things have downsides to them? What might they be? We all want to be a part of the latest and greatest weight-losing life-improving fad diet, but at what cost…The post Fad Diets appeared first on Action For Wellness.

Fad Diets

Today’s episode is more emotional than usual. Emotional but so important! Today Maya will share the story of her friend, Flori, who was killed while crossing the road on her way to pick up her son from kindergarten. We decided to dedicate this episode to discussing the importance of being mindful of what we’re doing,…The post A Personal Story appeared first on Action For Wellness.

A Personal Story

In this episode we’re summing up 2018, discussing our failures and success! How are we going to improve and become more focused in 2019, what did we learn about ourselves and about life? Which fears have we overcome? To help you get your goals sorted, organised and to get started with a proper plan and…The post Welcome 2019! appeared first on Action For Wellness.

Welcome 2019!

It&apos;s time to pull out your notes from January, and take a moment to seriously consider your progress when it comes to achieving your dreams! Before you set out to do this though, keep in mind one important fact: the goals you set for yourself – they are yous and yours alone. No one else…The post 032 | Quarter year check-in! appeared first on Action For Wellness.

032 | Quarter year check-in!

They say the average millionaire has 7 different income streams. I think those who are rich in happiness also have many income streams. The post 031 | Deadlines appeared first on Action For Wellness.

031 | Deadlines

Sasha broke up with her boyfriend at the time and found inspiration.She decided to use her dark sense of humor, and make herself a break-up card to cheer herself up. Guess what? Since that breakup, she&apos;s sold over 30,000 cards!The post 030 | Laughter is the best medicine! appeared first on Action For Wellness.

030 | Laughter is the best medicine!

Want to know first about our next episode? Want to get special bonuses and free content? Subscribe Here Sometimes everyone needs a little break from life. Be it a short getaway overseas or to a local hotel, be it having a drink and letting go. It&apos;s there, whether we choose to ignore it or not.…The post 029 | Blowing Off Steam appeared first on Action For Wellness.

029 | Blowing Off Steam

You need to find a way to do things that inspire you every single day. Seriously. Look for flowers, play with your kids, watch the sunset, listen to music, cook, knit, dance... whatever it is that allows all the crazy ideas questions and thoughts to pop into your mind. It&apos;s what feeds your soul.The post 028| Get inspired! appeared first on Action For Wellness.

028| Get inspired!

We have so many things in our life to be thankful for and happy about =) In today’s episode we discuss our circles of influence, which are always around us and for better or worse, have a substantial effect on how we see ourselves, our lives, our achievements… We discuss the two types of people…The post 027 | Circles of influence appeared first on Action For Wellness.

027 | Circles of influence

Sometimes in life you are forced to make a choice- are you going to survive this or are you going to try your best to thrive with this. That&apos;s what we&apos;re talking about in this interview with Gemma Boak, from www.thisscientistsays.com with you. Gemma was diagnosed at six years old with psoriasis and spent her life getting…The post 026 | Thriving over surviving appeared first on Action For Wellness.

026 | Thriving over surviving

In this episode, we talk about how decluttering can help you get more than just your possessions under control, but also how to turn that process of refining your life into a journey of self-acceptance and love. The post 025 |The simple joy of decluttering appeared first on Action For Wellness.

025 |The simple joy of decluttering

Today we’re discussing how we can make the most out of things in our lives, invest more of ourselves into the things we’re doing and pushing up the glass ceiling. So often we, unconsciously, set our own limits at a place where we feel comfortable although we can easily break these and go so much…The post 024 | Going all-in appeared first on Action For Wellness.

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